To help users of the placemat software, in this thread will be posted the used parameters of the placemat software. The intention is that placemats made by JDAW can be used as examples of how the software’s features can be invoked.

These placemats were generally made with the then-current version. Later versions of the software have changed the names or usage or defaults or existence of some of the parameters. Hence readers might prefer to start reading at the end.

• Data pulled from PortData into Circlearrays, Titles, Belowtitles, and TitlesTastingNotes. This code is slightly more general-purpose than is used because there had been plans to include some magnums.

• ExternalLinks contains the TN threads — at least those created before the tasting. Is this a good idea?

• Seven glasses on SheetNum 0. So GlassesOnSheets set manually, and copied in to GlassesOnTastingNotePages, and PermittedPackingStyles changed to remove the default conditions on /DiamondsPlus (indeed, the conditions might be removed from the default). Finally ShrinkRadii changed so that SheetNums 1 and 2 can have larger radii than 0.

• Early versions of the placemats had greyed-out circles for the years not made (1993, 2002), and circles for Capela. Not used.
• On /A2, with a large bottom margin (in OuterGlassesMarginB), the value of which was computed in Mathematica (“r = (594*360/127 - 48)/(2 + 7 Sqrt[3]) // FullSimplify; Print[N[r]]; outerGlassesMarginB = (420*360/127 - 30 - 24 - 7 r) // Simplify; Print[outerGlassesMarginB]; Print[N[outerGlassesMarginB]];”) so that circles were arranged in a compact 60° pattern.
• To echo the 60° pattern, /CircletextsMinCopies 6 def.

• The two six-glass pages need to be arranged differently to the one three-glass page, as specified in PackingStyles, with also /PackingNestingColumnMajor true def. That arrangement also necessitated non-default behaviour for GlassesOnSheets. To keep the TN sizes even, there had to be an extra three blank spaces on the third TN page, affecting GlassesOnTastingNotePages, in turn necessitating that there be a blank in Titles etc.

• The vote-recorded and decanting-note pages should be separated into shippers (rather than the default separation of by TN pages), affecting GlassesClusteredOnVoteRecorders, GlassesClusteredOnDecantingNotes, and (with slightly different affect) GlassesClusteredOnCorkDisplay.

• Background Union Jacks were to be stroked; foreground filled with a white rectfill behind. So Union-Jack is code taking a single Boolean parameter: true ⇒ fill; false ⇒ stroke.

• EffectiveNumCharacters and AsciiEquivalent weren’t used, but set anyway as good practice. E.g., if a Union Jack has been in the array of Titles, and FontSizesTitlesNotSmallerIfTitlesNotLonger had been true, then the former would have been needed. And in the same circumstance, the latter would have been used for making the PDF’s table of contents.

• Union-Jack was complicatedly part binded. It could have been not binded at all, but that has the danger that somebody — me! — years later copying this code would add a bind not realising that the painting commands must not be binded. So the partial bind is really just a note-to-self.

• Also, just for interest, UnionJackCount counts the number of painted Jacks (ans: “UnionJackCount = 3690”). Some calls to this command have fill and stroke re-def’d to do nothing, so that the calling code can know the size of the painted shape. These are not counted. And the standard parameter EpilogueCode outputs UnionJackCount. But, as said, just for interest.

Mostly vanilla. Indeed the only non-standard thing was the decorative variations to TitlesFont, ShapesInTitles, ShapesToUse, InlineTitles, ColourSchemeTitles, and the simple usage of VoteRecorderCrossedBox.

• Tricksiness with ShapesInTitles. For a wedding event, hearts seemed natural. Five colours. If they were scattered randomly over the wobbled square grid, on average 59% of non-edge hearts would have a neighbour of the same colour scheme (as 1−⅘⁴ = 59.04%). Ick. So instead it indexes using the internal looping parameters, 2×ShapesIntX + ShapesIntY being a pattern in which each is a knight’s move from others of the same colour. That modulo 5 (except that PostScript’s mod is actually a remainder function, hence the awkward 5 mod 5 add 5 mod) then reaches into a set of Union-Jack and royal colours, plus a vivid pink.

• The /InlineTitlesMaxNumberContours 2 def with the coloured shapes was quite elegant. The inner lines are drawn under everything else (it must be thus, because of the absence of an ‘anticlip’ operator), and the outermost line drawn over.

• As is usual, the data is stored in PortData, and from there decanted into Circlearrays, Titles, and Belowtitles.

• RotationTitlesAboveBelowOverCirclearray is almost always 0; here it is ±8°, the sign determined by whether the decade is odd or even. Observe the ‘ASCIIfy’, which removes from compound strings the likes of “{-0.06 Kern}”.

• ShapesStarsPointsAndStepsArray has one octagon, two 8/2 stars, and three 8/3, affecting delivered frequencies.

• And a complicated PaintBackgroundCode. The software makes all its sub-routines available to the user, and also allows the full power of PostScript — best usage of which needs some expertise.

• In PackingStyles the new flag /SuppressNonRightOrnaments does lots of work that used to be quite intricate (see, for example, in the tasting of 9 March 2017, the construction of ThePortForumIconPlacement, HeadersLeft, HeadersCenter).

• If half of the A4 is tucked under the A3 then the formulae in CrossHatchingCentreX and CrossHatchingCentreY causes the two pages’ cross hatchings to seem to have a common centre.

• At this tasting some copies of The Book were to be distributed. On its jacket was the font Cochin-Bold, which was repeated here.